The Clock Is Ticking At St. Paul's

Published: December 14, 2003

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Michael Ciaffa, a resident who favors public use, said at the hearing that of the three private proposals, the most elaborate one was probably the most realistic. ''It seems clear that the only way to make it viable for a private developer is to build and build and build,'' he said. ''That means a lot of bulk and loss of green space. None of these plans truly preserve and benefit us all.''

The Cathedral School of St. Paul's was built by Cornelia M. Stewart in memory of her husband, Alexander Turney Stewart, the New York merchant who invented the American department store and was one of the richest men in the world when he decided to create Garden City in 1869. Mrs. Stewart later also built the nearby Episcopal Cathedral and St. Mary's, a school for girls. She donated the properties to the diocese, prompting the diocese to move its seat to Garden City from Brooklyn.

''St. Paul's is really what put Garden City on the map,'' said Peter Negri, a trustee on the village board and the strongest proponent of the plan to move the library into St. Paul's. ''Stewart's vision of a planned community stalled after he died, but his widow pushed forward with it, and St. Paul's was the first piece to open, and it made clear to everyone that the village was credible.''

When the school for boys in Grades 7 through 12 opened in 1883, The New York Times wrote: ''The cathedral school in its arrangement for the welfare of its pupils may be properly described as a vast hotel with a schoolhouse attached.'' Even the laundry, kitchen and storerooms in the basement, it said, were ''as complete as those of any first class hotel.''

The building is shaped like a letter E, with three wings extending back beyond its 300-foot façade. The center wing housed the chapel and a dining hall, the western wing held classrooms, and the eastern wing was filled with dorm rooms and apartments for faculty members. The first floor was clearly designed to impress, with wainscoting in the halls made of terra cotta and elaborately tiled floors. Crystal chandeliers hung in elegant reception rooms off the main entrance. Virtually every room was trimmed with mahogany or oak. The school cost Mrs. Stewart $1 million, at a time when the big Victorian homes in central Garden City were being built for $5,000 to $17,000.

''It's a magnificent structure that was built basically with unlimited funds, and it was built to last,'' said John Ellis Kordes, the village historian. ''I think you would be hard-pressed to find a school like this anywhere else in the country. In a perfect world the school would still be there thriving, but at the very least, the exterior should be saved because it's one of the most important features in our historic landscape.''

At its peak, the school housed some 500 boys, but by 1991 when it closed, St. Paul's had merged with St. Mary's and had a graduating class of only 28. The village bought the school and the 48 acres it sits on in 1993 for $7.25 million through friendly condemnation proceedings, with plans to turn the building into the village hall. Voters had overwhelmingly approved an $8.5 million bond issue to pay for the purchase and initial repairs. Two other buildings on the property, a field house and a gymnasium with five basketball courts, quickly became a recreation center for the village, and the 38 acres of playing fields around the school were put to use by local athletic leagues.

But when a study produced an $18 million estimate for the conversion of the school into governmental offices, village officials decided to seek a private use for the building. By 1998, the village had entered into an agreement with Carematrix, a Massachusetts company that planned to turn the school into an assisted-living complex for the elderly. That plan stalled, though, when residents successfully sued to stop the village from turning the building over to a private developer. A State Supreme Court judge ruled that the village would need to seek state legislation before diverging from its original plan for municipal or public use. Carematrix also went into a financial tailspin and eventually defaulted on its lease with the village.

By 2002, after the village had exhausted its judicial appeals on the court case, village officials had commissioned a new architectural and engineering study of the building that estimated a $23 million cost for moving the village hall into roughly 45,000 square feet of the building and building a free-standing firehouse nearby. Some officials have estimated that the true cost would be closer to $38 million.

Mr. Negri, the village trustee, said that the board felt the expense was too high, because most residents ''don't use village hall on a daily or even weekly basis, it just didn't seem to be enough of a valid purpose.'' He first floated the idea of moving the library to St. Paul's instead late last year, reasoning that residents would use a library more regularly and that it could also become a community center. ''I believe the village would support spending money for a public use and we should put it to a vote,'' he said. ''If it fails, then we would know how not to go forward.''